Acts 8:26–40
Be still: Lord, help me to still my mind today, to lay down distraction and notice your loving presence here with me as I read your Word. Let me hear what it is you’re saying to me. Amen
Read: Acts 8:26–40
As they travelled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, 'Look, here is water. What can stand in the way of my being baptised?’ (v36)
Encounter: I’ve hit snooze on the alarm and as I get out of bed, I feel the guilt of missing my quiet time with God. The structure planned and not achieved leaves me feeling I’m behind for the day and in my relationship with God. The spiritual disciplines I long to abide by rise and fall in my life, leaving me frustrated — I complicate what it means to be a child of God.
In this passage, the eunuch having been told the good news, sees water by the roadside and without complicating it, stops and gets baptised. I’m struck by the simplicity of his words and actions. He has listened and believed and so declares his faith by the roadside. There is something beautifully innocent and childlike in this response.
We often lose this childlike simplicity as we get tangled up in the busyness of life, or the false notion that maturing as a Christian means increasing complexity in our faith. The truth is that the good news remains deeply simple: we are the children of God, Jesus came and died for our sins, was resurrected, and through that gave us life to the full. We can lean into this simple truth, like the eunuch, knowing we are loved without doing anything. And then, we will stop by the roadside, forgetting pride and position, and submerge ourselves in the water. Then we will love our neighbour, be generous, spend time in scripture, pray, fast, take sabbath and all the other disciplines. Not because we must, in order to be loved, but because it flows from the place of first being loved.
Apply: Ask God to show you where you are complicating your relationship with him or striving in your faith. What would it look like to go through your day acting in the simplicity of knowing you are already loved?
Devote: God, thank you for loving me before I have achieved anything. Forgive me for trying to achieve what is already mine. Help me rest in your love today.